Thursday, 22 December 2011

E.ON AG, Germany's biggest utility, said it's investing 7 billion euros ($9.1 billion) in renewable energy projects over the next five years as the country drops nuclear power generation. E.ON plans to build at least three offshore wind projects, including the 1 billion-euro Amrumbank West farm in the North Sea, Dusseldorf-based E.ON said in an e-mailed statement today. Siemens AG, Europe's biggest engineering company, will supply the the 288- MW plant with 80 of its turbines.

"Renewables are a cornerstone of our strategy, and offshore wind is one of E.ON's growth areas", Chief Executive Officer Johannes Teyssen said in the statement. "We intend to commission a new offshore wind farm every 18 months". Germany, Europe's biggest economy, seeks to install 10,000 MWs of sea-based wind turbines this decade as it raises the share of renewables and phases out atomic energy. Utilities including E.ON and RWE AG (RWE) are selling assets and cutting jobs to lower costs and boost profit margins as the nuclear exit removes revenue streams.

E.ON is cutting as many as 11,000 positions and announced a 64% slide in nine-month profit, in part because of the phase-out. The utility plans a 219- MWwind farm off the U.K, and a 48- MW facility off Sweden's southern Baltic Sea coast. Both projects, which have a combined cost of about 970 million euros, will use turbines supplied by Vestas Wind Systems AS, E.ON said. Japan's Fukushima Dai-Ichi disaster in March spurred Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to revise its nuclear power policy with a plan to shut the country's 17 reactors by 2022.